Revisiting the Classics: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

  • Thursday, March 7, 2024 / 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM (PST)
  • Pollock Theater
  • Screening Format: Sony 4K Digital Projection (104 Minutes)
  • With Steve Starkey (associate producer), Peter S. Seaman (screenwriter)
  • Director: Robert Zemeckis
    Starring: Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer, Kathleen Turner

Set in an alternate postwar Hollywood where humans and cartoon characters mix uneasily, the film follows grizzled gumshoe Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), whose brother Teddy was murdered by an unknown ‘toon years earlier. Much to his chagrin, Eddie is drawn back into the topsy world of the ‘toons when animation studio magnate R.K. Maroon hires him to run a P.I. job on the bombshell wife of one of his biggest stars, Roger Rabbit. But as Eddie tugs at the threads of this seemingly simple investigation, he and Roger are drawn into a spiraling conspiracy against the ‘toons of Toontown, masterminded by the villainous Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd). Blending hard-boiled LA noir storytelling with unforgettable live-action performances and dazzling animation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an iconic and gloriously offbeat classic.

In this event, associate producer Steve Starkey and screenwriter Peter S. Seaman joined Carsey-Wolf Center Assistant Director Tyler Morgenstern for a post-screening discussion of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 

Please note: All available seats for this event have been reserved. However, we will be running a first-come, first-served standby line on the evening of the screening, in addition to admitting our ticketed patrons. In order to best serve all guests, we kindly ask that all ticketed patrons be seated in the Pollock Theater no later than 6:55 PM. If you are not scanned in and seated in the theater by 6:55 PM, your seat may be released to a standby patron. Please plan to arrive on campus early to give yourself time to find parking and walk to the theater. If you have made a reservation for this event, but anticipate being unable to attend, please contact us at info@carseywolf.ucsb.edu to request a cancellation.

Biographies

A headshot of producer Steve Starkey. He wears a dark wool coat, a grey scarf and a black necktie. He is smiling for the camera at an outdoor event.

Associate Producer Steve Starkey

Producer Steve Starkey is a producing partner in the filmmaking company ImageMovers with Robert Zemeckis and Jack Rapke. His collaboration with Zemeckis began in 1986 with the innovative feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and has continued through the second and third installments of the Back to the Future trilogy, the Best Picture-winner Forrest Gump, the black comedy Death Becomes HerContact, Cast Away, Flight, and The Walk. With ImageMovers Digital, Starkey and his partners pioneered performance capture technology in the Zemeckis-directed film The Polar Express, followed by BeowulfA Christmas Carol, and Monster House. Other producing credits with ImageMovers include What Lies Beneath, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, Matchstick MenAllied, and Welcome to Marwen.

Headshot of screenwriter, Peter Seaman. He wears a sweater overtop a blue button up shirt. He is posed with his arms cross, smiling towards the camera, against the exterior of a building with plants in front of it.

Screenwriter Peter S. Seaman

Peter S. Seaman is the co-writer of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the multiple Academy Award-winning 1988 film. His work earned nominations for both WGA and BAFTA awards.

A writer/director/producer, he has numerous other film and television credits, ranging from The Grinch and Shrek The Third to Doc Hollywood, Wild Wild West, and Tales from the Crypt.  

He is also a documentary filmmaker who has made the Santa Barbara-centric films Citizen McCaw and West of the West — Tales from California’s Channel Islands for PBS. He is a 30-year resident of Carpinteria, California.

Headshot of Tyler Morgenstern. The black and white image depicts a man wearing a scarf and floral button-up long sleeve shirt. He is smiling and posed in front of a nature background which features a pond, large trees and mountains.

Moderator Tyler Morgenstern

Tyler Morgenstern is Assistant Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center and an alumnus of the UCSB Film and Media Studies PhD program. As a scholar, his research and teaching focused on the media and technological cultures of empire and settler colonialism. He completed his dissertation, Colonial Recursion and Decolonial Maneuver in the Cybernetic Diaspora in 2021, and has published in journals including International Journal of Communication, Media+Environment, and Synoptique. With Krista Lynes and Ian Alan Paul, he is also co-editor of Moving Images: Mediating Migration as Crisis (Transcript Verlag, 2020).

 This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center.

Revisiting the Classics

What happens when a film becomes a “classic”? The Carsey-Wolf Center’s 2023-24 feature series Revisiting the Classics engages creatively and critically with our filmic past, approaching it with fresh eyes and novel interpretive lenses. Not simply a celebration of the “great works,” Revisiting the Classics will consider how classic texts have shaped the work of contemporary filmmakers, how complicated questions of politics and aesthetics emerge through practices of adaptation and interpretation, and how the changing landscape of film distribution, archiving, preservation, and critique affects the formation of canon and the making of new “classics.”